The Savory Method

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A system of intensive cattle ranching developed by Allan Savory, also known as or categorized under these names:

  • The Savory Grazing Method
  • Rotational grazing
  • Multi-paddock adaptive grazing
  • Regenerative grazing
  • Holistic resource management
  • Time controlled grazing
  • Short-duration grazing


Critiques

The efficacy of Savory's method of cattle grazing is predicated on five assumptions and an article in the International Journal of Biodiversity addressed all five assumptions necessary for the Savory method to hold any validity, focusing on "western North American arid and semiarid ecosystems, principally in the desert, steppe, grassland, and open conifer woodland biomes"[1]

The response to Allan Savory's assumptions are summarized below:

Assumption 1: Plant communities and soils of the arid, semiarid, and grassland systems of the world evolved in the presence of large herds of animals regulated by their predators

Western US ecosystems outside the prairies in which bison occurred are not adapted to the impact of large herds of livestock. Recent changes to these grassland ecosystems result from herbivory by domestic livestock which has altered fire cycles and promoted invasive species at the expense of native vegetation.

Assumption 2: Grasses in these areas will become decadent and die out if not grazed by these large herds or their modern day equivalent, livestock

...Grazing and trampling by domestic livestock damage plants in natural plant communities, reduce forage production as stocking rates increase, and can lead to simplification of plant communities, establishment of woody vegetation in grasslands, and regression to earlier successional stages or conversion to invasive dominated communities and altered fire cycles. In contrast to the assertion that grasses will die if not grazed by livestock, bunchgrasses in arid environments are more likely to die if they are heavily grazed by domestic animals...

...Grasses, particularly bunchgrasses, have structure that protects growing points from damage, harvests water, and protects the soil at the plant base. Removal of the standing plant material exposes the growing points, leading to loss or replacement by grazing tolerant species, including invasives.

Assumption 3: Rest from grazing by these large herds of livestock will result in grassland deterioration

...grasslands that have never been grazed by livestock have been found to support high cover of grasses and forbs. Relict sites throughout the western USA, such as on mesa tops, steep gorges, cliff sides, and even highway rights of way, which are inaccessible to livestock or most ungulates, can retain thriving bunchgrass communities...

...Published comparisons of grazed and ungrazed lands in the western USA have found that rested sites have larger and more dense grasses, fewer weedy forbs and shrubs, higher biodiversity, higher productivity, less bare ground, and better water infiltration than nearby grazed sites. These reports include 139 sites in south Dakota, as well as sites that had been rested for 18 years in Montana, 30 years in Nevada, 20–40 years in British Columbia, 45 years in Idaho, and 50 years in the Sonoran Desert of Arizona. None of the above studies demonstrated that long periods of rest damaged native grasslands...

...Contrary to the assumption that grasses will senesce and die if not grazed by livestock, studies of numerous relict sites, long-term rested sites, and paired grazed and ungrazed sites have demonstrated that native plant communities, particularly bunchgrasses, are sustained by rest from livestock grazing.

Assumption 4: Large herds are needed to break up decadent plant material and soil crusts and trample dung, urine, seeds, and plant material into the soil, promoting plant growth

... Hoof action is not needed to increase soil fertility and decomposition of litter. It is well-established that soil protozoa, arthropods, earthworms, microscopic bacteria, and fungi decompose plant and animal residues in all environments. Even the driest environments contain 100 million to one billion decomposing bacteria and tens to hundreds of meters of fungal hyphae per gram of soil. Brady and Weil discuss the importance of mammals in the decay process, mentioning burrowing mammals, but not large grazers such as cattle and bison. Removal of plant biomass and lowered production resulting from livestock grazing can reduce fertility and organic content of the soil...

...We found no evidence that hoof action as described by Savory occurs in the arid and semiarid grasslands of the western USA which lacked large herds of ungulates such as bison that occurred in the prairies of the USA or the savannahs of Africa. No benefits of hoof action were found. To the contrary, hoof action by livestock has been documented to destroy biological crusts, a key component in soil protection and nutrient cycling, thereby increasing erosion rates and reducing fertility, while, increasing soil compaction and reducing water infiltration.

Assumption 5: High intensity grazing of these lands by livestock will reverse desertification and climate change by increasing production and cover of the soil, thereby storing more carbon

Among the most recent HM claims is that livestock grazing will lead to sequestration of large amounts of carbon, thus potentially reversing climate change. However, any increased carbon storage through livestock grazing must be weighed against the contribution of livestock metabolism to greenhouse gas emissions due to rumen bacteria methane emissions, manure, and fossil fuel use across the production chain. Nitrous oxide, 300 times more potent than methane in trapping greenhouse gases, is also produced and released with livestock production. The livestock industry’s contribution to greenhouse gases also includes CO2 released by conversion of forests to grasslands for the purpose of grazing....

...Some suggest that grass-fed beef is a superior alternative to beef produced in confined animal feeding operations. However, grass provides less caloric energy per pound of feed than grain and, as a consequence, a grass-fed cow’s rumen bacteria must work longer breaking down and digesting grass in order to extract the same energy content found in grain, while the bacteria in its rumen are emitting methane. Comparisons of pasture-finished and feedlot-finished beef in the USA found that pasture-finished beef produced 30% more greenhouse gas emissions on a live weight basis...

...It is estimated that three times as much carbon resides in soil organic matter as in the atmosphere, while grasslands and shrublands have been estimated to store 30 percent of the world’s soil carbon with additional amounts stored in the associated vegetation. Long term intensive agriculture can significantly deplete soil organic carbon and past livestock grazing in the United States has led to such losses. Livestock grazing was also found to significantly reduce carbon storage on Australian grazed lands while destocking currently grazed shrublands resulted in net carbon storage. Livestock-grazed sites in Canyonlands National Park, Utah, had 20% less plant cover and 100% less soil carbon and nitrogen than areas grazed only by native herbivores. Declines in soil carbon and nitrogen were found in grazed areas compared to ungrazed areas in sage steppe habitats in northeastern Utah. As grazing intensity increased, mycorrhizal fungi at the litter/soil interface were destroyed by trampling, while ground cover, plant litter, and soil organic carbon and nitrogen decreased. A review by Beschta et al. determined that livestock grazing and trampling in the western USA led to a reduction in the ability of vegetation and soils to sequester carbon and also led to losses in stored carbon...

...Livestock are a major source of greenhouse gas emissions. Livestock removal of plant biomass and altering of soil properties by trampling and erosion causes loss of carbon storage and nutrients as evidenced by studies in grazed and ungrazed areas.[2]

Biodiversity

Studies in favor of Holistic Management grazing techniques do not take into consideration biodiversity when evaluating the efficacy of said technique let alone do the studies make comparative analysis regarding native species and non-native species before and after grazing has occurred.[3]

Riparian Zones

Are parts of land that are right next to bodies of water such as streams and rivers. These are delicate ecosystems and studies have shown that grazing has a negative impact on these types of land. The negative impacts include trampling of the delicate soils which leads to compaction of the soil in turn reducing water filtration and storage rates of the soil while increasing surface runoff and soil erosion during storms. The negative impacts are compounded when more cattle is introduced and maximizing cattle numbers is one of the main components of Holistic Management.[4]

Carbon Sequestration

A major claim by Allan Savory is that the non-forested lands across the globe are capable of sequestering all the carbon in the atmosphere in effect reversing climate change. Researches studying the Holistic Management technique have shown "...that the potential carbon sequestration of these lands is only about one to two billion metric tons per year (mtpy), a small fraction of global carbon emissions of 50 billion mtpy..." Furthermore, they explain"...that these lands would have to produce much larger vegetation biomass than they are capable of producing in order to sequester human-caused carbon emissions and that much of the carbon is released back to the atmosphere through respiration as CO2. They note that grass cover increases dramatically with rest and intensive grazing delays this recovery; many desert grassland soils are sandy, so hoof action does not increase infiltration; and biological crusts stabilize these soils and protect them from wind erosion and carbon loss." [5] [6] Researchers studying grazing have made it abundantly clear that increased cattle grazing will not result in the promised levels of sequestration asserted by Allan Savory and that the best method for restoring grasslands and increasing carbon sequestration in said areas is by rest and reducing grazing not by increased grazing.[7]

Methane

The savory institute claims there is no correlation between increased concentrations of atmospheric methane and livestock cattle grazing and used an report by the International Atomic Energy Agency to support their claim.[8]

Nitrous Oxide

1980's Cattle Intensification

Regen Network and Microsoft

Response to Critiques

According to Allan Savory, scientific evidence against his methods is irrelevant because holistic management "cannot be peer-reviewed." He has made this argument several times, perhaps most recently on Twitter in March of 2021[9] in response to scientific evidence showing that the beef supply White Oak Pastures provides for General Mills was heavily greenwashed. [10] White Oak Pastures is a "frontier founder" of the Savory Institute Land to Market program, which has inaccurately advertised WOP's products as "carbon-negative beef."[11]

Savory has also argued that his method has never failed in 50 years because it has "300 years of experience" derived from European military planning behind it.[12]


"Studies commonly held up as supporting HM used HM paddocks that were grazed with light to moderate grazing, not the heavy grazing that Savory recommends. Further, long-term range studies have shown that it is reductions in stocking rate that lead to increased forage production and improvements in range condition, not grazing system."[13]

Citations

  1. ↑ John Carter, Allison Jones, Mary O’Brien, Jonathan Ratner, George Wuerthner, "Holistic Management: Misinformation on the Science of Grazed Ecosystems", International Journal of Biodiversity, vol. 2014, Article ID 163431, 10 pages, 2014. https://doi.org/10.1155/2014/163431
  2. ↑ John Carter, Allison Jones, Mary O’Brien, Jonathan Ratner, George Wuerthner, "Holistic Management: Misinformation on the Science of Grazed Ecosystems", International Journal of Biodiversity, vol. 2014, Article ID 163431, 10 pages, 2014. https://doi.org/10.1155/2014/163431
  3. ↑ John Carter, Allison Jones, Mary O’Brien, Jonathan Ratner, George Wuerthner, "Holistic Management: Misinformation on the Science of Grazed Ecosystems", International Journal of Biodiversity, vol. 2014, Article ID 163431, 10 pages, 2014. https://doi.org/10.1155/2014/163431
  4. ↑ John Carter, Allison Jones, Mary O’Brien, Jonathan Ratner, George Wuerthner, "Holistic Management: Misinformation on the Science of Grazed Ecosystems", International Journal of Biodiversity, vol. 2014, Article ID 163431, 10 pages, 2014. https://doi.org/10.1155/2014/163431
  5. ↑ D. D. Briske, B. T. Bestelmeyer, J. R. Brown, S. D. Fuhlendorf, and H. W. Polley, “The Savory method cannot green deserts or reverse climate change,” Rangelands, vol. 35, no. 5, pp. 72–74, 2013.
  6. ↑ John Carter, Allison Jones, Mary O’Brien, Jonathan Ratner, George Wuerthner, "Holistic Management: Misinformation on the Science of Grazed Ecosystems", International Journal of Biodiversity, vol. 2014, Article ID 163431, 10 pages, 2014. https://doi.org/10.1155/2014/163431
  7. ↑ https://orgprints.org/id/eprint/34330/1/holisticmanagement_review.pdf
  8. ↑ https://savory.global/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/2015-methane.pdf
  9. ↑ https://twitter.com/allanrsavory/status/1368586780790906885?s=21
  10. ↑ https://plantbaseddata.medium.com/the-failed-attempt-to-greenwash-beef-7dfca9d74333
  11. ↑ https://d3n8a8pro7vhmx.cloudfront.net/climatecollaborative/mailings/1633/attachments/original/PPT-FINAL-Regenerative_Mapping-min_compressed.pdf?1579205603; p. 41
  12. ↑ https://centerforneweconomics.org/publications/greening-the-desert-holistic-management-in-the-era-of-climate-change/
  13. ↑ John Carter, Allison Jones, Mary O’Brien, Jonathan Ratner, George Wuerthner, "Holistic Management: Misinformation on the Science of Grazed Ecosystems", International Journal of Biodiversity, vol. 2014, Article ID 163431, 10 pages, 2014. https://doi.org/10.1155/2014/163431
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